This invention relates generally to electronic writing devices and, more particularly, relates to digitizer devices and the like wherein a user moves a special pen or stylus over a surface of a sensitive tablet for creating strokes of xe2x80x9celectronic inkxe2x80x9d on a display device.
Electronic tablets and digitizer devices are well known and widely used. Typically a user holds a writing implement, such as a pen or stylus that contains electronic circuitry, and then moves a tip of the pen over a surface of an electronic tablet. An output of the tablet, which may be considered to be samples of the pen motion, is indicative of the location, in x-y tablet coordinates, of the tip of the pen. A display device can be used to map digitizer samples to display screen pixel coordinates, and to then connect these pixels by line segments. The result may be considered to be a display of xe2x80x9cdigital inkxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9celectronic inkxe2x80x9d.
The value of electronic ink to a particular user is determined in large part by how easily the electronic ink can be accessed and retrieved according to various user criteria. One typical, but technically challenging, method for accessing electronic ink is to first translate the ink strokes into text using a handwriting recognition software package, and to then access the electronic ink using conventional text processing operations such as string searching and/or bookmarks. However, many handwriting recognition systems and techniques produce unreliable output, and errors in correctly recognizing strokes can result in some of the electronic ink not being accessible. Also, some of the electronic ink may represent a sketch, a mathematical equation, or some other notation that is not suitable for being translated into text. Relatedly, a textual representation of the electronic ink is not required for many user queries into the electronic ink.
It is also frequently the case that it is desirable to access electronic ink in a similar manner to traditional paper notebooks, by retrieving electronic ink that was written at a certain time or within a certain period of days or weeks. However, and except for the most recently created electronic ink, this process can be very unreliable, as the user may have only a vague recollection of when certain (electronic ink) notes were taken.
It is a first object and advantage of this invention to provide a technique to associate, cross-reference and/or link the output of a digitizer-type device to entries maintained by an electronic personal information management tool (PIM tool), such as an electronic calendar, an electronic appointment or organizer book, or an electronic diary.
It is a further object and advantage of the invention to provide an auxiliary mechanism to improve the retrieval time for electronic ink.
It is another object and advantage of the invention to provide a mechanism to improve the overall retrieval accuracy for electronic ink, by not requiring that handwriting recognition be performed on the user-generated strokes.
The foregoing and other problems are overcome and the objects of the invention are realized by methods and apparatus in accordance with embodiments of this invention.
The teachings of this invention are directed to a method and to an apparatus, as well as to a computer program, for associating digitizer tablet stroke samples with entries of an electronic personal information management (PIM) tool, such as an electronic organizer or an electronic calendar. A stroke database has a plurality of time stamped stroke entries, and a PIM database has a plurality of entries each having a time associated therewith. A controller searches at least one of the stroke database and the PIM database to locate corresponding entries in each database that indicate that a particular one of the stroke entries was created at a time that corresponds to a particular one of the PIM database entries. The controller is responsive to the search being successful for forming a link between the stroke entry and the PIM database entry for enabling corresponding stroke information to be visualized in association with the particular one of the PIM database entries. In accordance with these teachings, and by example, a user is enabled to recall and view handwritten notes and other information that were made during a meeting that corresponds to an entry within the organizer database.